


Nadir

by Kuroeia (Empatheia)



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 12:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14105331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Kuroeia
Summary: Molly adjusts to her new life.





	Nadir

**Author's Note:**

> 750words entry from sometime last year. Don't bother canon-picking.

Molly heard a lot about her predecessor, in the first few months.

She learned more from the wordless things Maeve left behind. The jagged decor of her room, the contents of her wardrobe, the way everything flinched back and away when she opened the door to her chambers.

Mad, beautiful Maeve. She hadn't been very well liked. Nemesis hadn't helped, of course, but she'd burned the majority of those bridges under her own power. She had been cruel, but not as Winter was supposed to be cruel; she was hotheaded, and driven by her whims. True Winter was cold, inexorable, merciless. Maeve had been a violet flame.

Molly wasn't really sure yet what kind of Winter Lady she would be. She tended towards impulsiveness herself, but not cruelty, not so much. She could do a lot of damage when she chose, but all her biggest mistakes to date had come about because she'd been trying to help, not hurt. Winter wasn't a good place for sentiments like that.

She was beginning to understand, though, that Winter wasn't evil. It was harder on humanity than Summer was, of course, and more openly frightening and unpleasant, but it wasn't anything as simple as evil. Any more than the winding down of the year was evil, the frost and the darkness and the long slumber. It was just what it was. Part of the cycle. Necessary, though harsh.

Mab was a good queen of Winter. She was profoundly dangerous, of course, and had little mercy in her, but she understood the purpose of her court and directed it accordingly. She maintained balance, occasionally at great cost to herself.

Maeve's death was the perfect example. After spending some time in the Winter Queen's company, Molly had come to realize that Mab had — in her own chilly way — loved her daughter very much. Her grief over Maeve was subtle, hard to spot, but once Molly learned to recognize it she realized it was present just about all the time, a shadow behind Mab's eyes. She had loved her daughter, but her daughter had threatened the balance, having been poisoned by something incurable and malevolent. So she had done what she had to do. For the sake of the bigger picture she served.

It was hard to feel sympathy for a literal ice queen, but the more time Molly spent in the Winter court, the closer she got to it.

She still hadn't told her parents. She wasn't even sure what was stopping her, at this point. It wasn't like she still lived under their roof and relied on them for everything. She was an adult now, and had been for a while, so she wouldn't be risking her well-being.

Except in the emotional sense, of course. She would be risking the hell out of that. So far, it had proved too great an obstacle for her meagre courage to hurdle.

Soon, though, she thought. Harry's presence pushed the issue. He would keep her secret, but he didn't want to, and the longer she made him hold onto it the darker his eyes got. Eventually, she'd tell them just to escape that reprimanding stare.

It was easy to picture how it would go, anyway. Her mother would go deadly quiet, and her father would look sorrowful, and they would both want to know why she hadn't felt that she could trust them with this. She wouldn't really have an answer. It wasn't that she didn't think she could trust them, though. It was more that there was already so much darkness and pain in their world. She didn't really want to add on to it. If she could keep them innocent of this one thing a while longer, maybe they could walk just that much lighter for the time being.

Unless, of course, they could tell she was keeping a secret and it was eating at them, in which case she could only trade one trouble for another.

Caring about people was hard work, she thought. She was beginning to understand why villains generally tried to avoid it. Life would be simpler if she had no one's feelings to consider but her own.

That wasn't to say that she meant to go darkside herself. She'd put her toes in that water and found it too cold for her liking. Too empty, barren, lifeless. If keeping the pain meant she'd get to keep the rest of it, too, it was worth it.

Sitting down on the absurdly massive round bed that had been Maeve's, she flopped over backwards and stared at the crystalline ceiling.

Contained within the idea of Winter was the seed of spring. Winter's ground was full of life gathering itself for the spring explosion. It encompassed both the ending of the old and the beginning of the new. The nadir, and the upswing.

She could live with this.

**X**


End file.
